Brightening the Spirits
by ReKoJ
Summary: J.J is feeling depressed. Morgan has an issue and Hotch tries to help.


Brightening the Spirits

J.J. sat outside watching the snow fall. There was nothing she liked better; nothing she could think of was more peaceful then watching snow fall. It was quiet and for the first time in a long time she could pretend that there was no evil in the world; it was perfect.

Derek, on the other hand was baffled. Being part of the Secret Santa draw was a part of Christmas that he had always found fun. He knew that it was vital that Hotch and Rossi found ways to keep the morale of the team high; particularly around Christmas time. He knew that some of their most horrendous cases happened near the holidays. So that was how it came to be that he was sitting at his desk, staring at a piece of paper. The thing that was troubling him was that he'd picked J.J.'s name and he didn't have the slightest idea what he was going to get her.

He's known that whatever it was; it was going to have to be cheerful. After all; with Henry gone to visit Will that year it would be her first Christmas without him. It wasn't long before he decided to join her outside.

She sat on the bench hugging herself and looking up at the sky. She was thinking of her dead sister, and Will's dead father as well as all the families that they had dealt with that had lost people. She knew that this was the worst time of year for people who have loved ones either dead or missing. She wiped the tears from her eyes as she heard someone approach the bench she was sitting on.

For the longest time Derek just sat beside her. He knew that he should say something that would make her feel okay. As it turned out there were no words for that, instead it was a gesture. He put his arm around her and they locked eyes, then she leaned against his shoulder. He could feel her sigh and relax against him.

Rossi watched from the window and smiled. Derek may have thought that he was hiding his crush but when you worked around profilers every day someone along some line was bound to notice when you were attempting to hide something. He just hoped that it worked out for them.

Morgan sat outside with her for what seemed like hours. They never moved or spoke they just sat there. He was thinking of what he should say to her, while she was happy that someone had cared about her enough to go see what she was doing.

She knew as well as he did that the peace they had found couldn't last forever. They both knew that if the cold from the snow didn't drive them inside, that a case or a meeting of some sort would. She didn't seem to notice that she had grabbed his hand and gave it a light squeeze before heading back inside. Derek raised an eyebrow but said nothing as he followed her.

The next day as she walked to her office everyone seemed to notice that she had a slight bounce to her step. She figured it had to be pretty obvious if even Reid managed to spot it. As she walked by his desk she noticed that he had a small plastic reindeer in his hands. "What's that Spence?"

Spencer shrugged as he held up the reindeer for her to inspect. "It's a deer."

She smiled; sometimes she forgot that despite his intelligence the simplest things could sometimes leave him mystified for hours. This seemed to be especially true as far as relationships and Christmas were concerned.

He creased his forehead in thought. She knew what that look meant. It meant that he was trying to reason out something that didn't make sense to him but would have been simple to anyone else.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing…something…I don't know. That's to say that I'm not sure, or at least I don't think that I am."

She knew that the look of confusion/amusement that she was giving him; probably wasn't helping him to tell her what was confusing him so much. It was at that point that Morgan came in from the break room, as he passed Spencer's desk he put one of the two cups of coffee that he had been carrying on his desk.

"Did you figure it out Pretty Boy?" He smiled as Reid just sat in his chair, glaring at the older agent.

J.J. stood there, not really knowing what to say. "What's the deal with the plastic deer?" She finally asked.

Derek smiled. "Every year I like to play a joke on Reid; something has to keep that mind of his sharp. I bet him $50.00 that he couldn't figure out why that toy was so cheap."

"And?"

They were interrupted by the sound of "Frosty the Snowman" being played. She smiled. "I'm going to guess that Rudolph the Reindeer plays "Frosty the Snowman?"

Derek's smile got even bigger. "Yeah and he'll spend the entire month of December trying to figure out the connection." The smile that he gave her was priceless. It was the smile that he reserved for occasions when he knew that he was being a shit.

She teasingly slapped him on the shoulder. "You are evil."

He smiled at her. "You have no idea. Do you think that we could get pretty boy to go outside after lunch?"

She narrowed her eyes as she tried to figure out what he was up to. "It's freezing out but I'll see what I can do."

As soon as she left his area he smiled. He walked into the Bull Pen and stopped when he hit Spencer's desk. The young doctor didn't even look up. "Does she suspect anything?"

Derek smiled. At first he had doubted the kid's ability to act like nothing was going on but even Derek had to admit that the kid pulled it off without a hitch. "Not a thing pretty boy."

Spencer nodded. "Good."

Derek smiled. The next couple of hours proved to be entertaining to say the least. He knew that J.J. would be coming in the room soon so he headed to Hotch's office. "Hey Hotch?"

Hotch looked up from the case files that he'd been flipping through. "Morgan. You still going to go through with this?"

Derek closed Hotch's office door. "I have to. I don't want to spend the rest of my professional life and more than likely my personal life wondering what could have been and what might have been if I had had the guts or the courage to tell her how I felt about her. No, I have to do this."

Hotch half-smiled. He remembered what it had been like to be in love, real love for the first time. He'd been on head-over-heels love with Haley, even after she had filed for the divorce. If he was honest with himself, even though she was gone; he still loved her. He sighed and tried to snap back into the conversation that he was supposed to be having with Derek. "I understand completely. I'll make sure that everything is all set."

Derek nodded as he tried not to grin like an idiot. As he peered out of Hotch's window he was surprised when J.J. was actually attempting to get Reid to agree to come outside. He smiled as he saw her gesture towards the door and he, almost completely disinterested gestured towards his paperwork.

Hotch slipped past Derek and started towards the bullpen. "BAU team outside."

J.J. looked at Morgan confused. He shrugged and headed toward the coat closet. It had snowed the night before so the snow was fresh. Hotch led everyone outside.

Rossi had beaten them outside; he had the whole yard to himself and had for a while. What he had done was he had enlisted the help of the new recruits, and they had managed to build two igloo-type forts, one on each side of the yard. He had no clue that Hotch had already had something planned, and that the whole thing had been set up for Derek.

The team had assembled outside, and Hotch was standing in front of them. "Okay, I know that he last few weeks have been really stressful, and I thought that we could all use…"

He didn't get to finish his sentence J.J. had glanced over at Reid, who was still fiddling with the plastic reindeer that Derek had given him but he was also staring at Rossi, who was slowly and steadily coming up behind Hotch. At first J.J. didn't get what he was doing, and then she saw the snowball that he had been slowly rubbing between his gloved hands. Hotch didn't finish his sentence because he got blasted in the back of his head with a snowball.

It would have been funny to any number of bystanders, just the silence and looks of horror on the team, the look of shock on Hotch's face and the devilish grin that Rossi wore. It took only about a minute for total mayhem to follow.

It started with Hotch smiling, turning to Rossi, "Okay then." He reached down, got a fistful of snow, shaping it into a ball and throwing it back at Rossi, who then returned fire, missed, and hit a very shocked Spencer Reid.

Spencer dropped the plastic toy in the snow, making a snowball of his own and hitting Rossi right in the middle of his forehead.

Morgan realized that the snow forts were there for a reason, dashed over to J.J. before she could be hit, took her hand and they ran towards one of the forts to take cover from the flying snow.

Once safe he knew that his careful plan had been ruined. He knew that it was going to be now or never. Once they were behind the fort, Morgan kissed her; he was surprised when she kissed him back. When they finally broke for air, they just stared into each other's eyes, and they knew they shared each other's feelings.

"Tell you what, let's murder Rossi with snow, then we'll go inside."

Derek raised an eyebrow, "Sort of weird for a first date but he DID hit pretty boy with a snowball…so okay." They came out from behind the igloo; holding hands, armed with snowballs. Before they threw their first of many snowballs, Morgan kissed her again. "Merry Christmas J.J."

She smiled back, and then proceeded to hit Rossi with a snowball. Despite how she had felt at the beginning of the day, she somehow knew that this was going to be a great Christmas.

The End.


End file.
